Broken: A Songfic
by Amy Larson
Summary: KOTOR: Female Revan x Carth. Spoilers, I guess, for those who haven't seen the end of the game. Songfic for Broken by Amy Lee & Seether.


Author Notes: Disclaim'd. Concept & Characters belong to George Lucas, and the lyrics to Broken belong to Amy Lee & Seether. Hope you enjoy. This is after Revan's left for the Unknown Regions.

* * *

Carth Onasi was seated at his desk, shifting uncomfortably in his new Admiral's uniform. It was a crisp dark green color, mostly, but he would have taken his old orange flight jacket over it any day. It was broken in to, it was comfortable, it was… Gone. She'd taken it with her. 

He glanced over at the photograph on his desk, a little torn on one edge, when Dustil had tried to take it from him, see who it was that was making him leave every night for the cantina. He preferred photos over holovids… Because photos didn't break quite as easily. And somehow the face there seemed more real to him than a blue-tinted holographic image ever could.

Carth picked up the photo and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, recalling when he'd taken it, after digging through his footlocker of old things – his camera was practically an antique. He'd convinced her to take a picture… She was laughing in it, her face a high, healthy color, her eyes sparkling.

"_I wanted you to know… That I love the way you laugh…"_ he said quietly, tracing the outline of her face with one finger. "_I __wanna__ hold you high and steal your pain…"_

He saw her clearly in his mind, after she cried on him on Kashyyyk. She'd been hurting so badly, for what she had done, but she'd blocked it out, kept her emotions pent up despite how much she seemed to have let them out. She'd let them out to him.

"_I keep your photograph, and I know it serves me well… I __wanna__ hold you high and steal your pain…"_ Carth sighed and put the photograph back into his desk, shutting the drawer with a dull, decided _thump_. "_'Cus I'm broken when I'm __lonesome,__ and I don't feel right when you're gone away…_"

He had forgotten Morgana, because of _her. _Since Morgana died, _s__he'd_ made him forget, she'd taken his pain away. Now she'd been gone longer than Morgana had been dead when he'd gotten over her. He hadn't any sweet distraction, and in any case, he had vowed not to love another. Not after both of them left, each to where he couldn't follow…

"_You've gone away… You don't feel me here, anymore…_"

Somewhere in the Unknown Regions, amidst the many billions of unknown stars and planets and the farthest, emptiest reaches of space, a beat-up Republic ship, long-abandoned but recently re-inhabited, drifted silently. Elizabeth Salo was seated in the tiny back dormitory on one of the old, dusty beds. The whole place smelled like… _Nothing_.

She was slumped against the wall, her hands covering her face, her chest rising and falling erratically for her attempt to keep herself under control. She hadn't any human contact for the past… How long had it been? She'd forgotten somewhere after the first 100 days. She was so far away, from anyone, from anything she cared about.

But some good had come… She'd have liked to believe. She raked her hands through her now-knotted black hair and thought of the amount of terrors she'd seen, the number of "True Sith" she'd faced up to… But somehow she felt like she hadn't made any progress.

Then she recalled when she'd defeated her previous apprentice, back by the Core Planets, in the Star Forge. "_The worst is over now…_" she sang quietly, her own voice the only comfort in the days that blended into each other into a monotonous, quiet, _lonely_ mass. "_And we can breathe again… I __wanna__ hold you high and steal my pain…"_

Her thoughts turned to her handsome pilot… Who no doubt had moved on from her by now. She thought of him, and longed for him, and dropped her hands from her face to pull the orange jacket on her lap up to her chest, to press it there to her heart. The man who had taken away all of her fears, all of her doubts, the man she had left in the core planets with all of her heart.

"_There's so much left to learn, and no one left to fight…_ I've done everything I can here…" She had seen many things, yes, but it seemed the Sith had caught onto her, had managed to hide themselves even from her strong sense in the Force. "_I __wanna__ hold you high and steal your pain…_"

Her pilot, her Flyboy, her Carth Onasi… Maybe he hadn't moved on, maybe she had shattered his heart… But she would have preferred he hate her. She'd have anything over hurting him.

"_'Cause I'm broken when I'm open… And I don't feel like I am strong enough…_" _That's why I fell in the first place, isn't it?_ She thought grimly. _Fear.__ Is that why I left, too? __To prove something to myself?__ Whatever it was for, I pretty much failed._

Now she drew her legs to her chest, pressed the jacket to her face, breathed, but his scent was gone, as might be expected after a 5 years' absence from its owner. She felt hot tears in her eyes, the wetness on her face, and her chest heaved with a sob, like the lack of the scents she knew him by only told her again and again that he was so very, very far away. She somewhat regretted having taken it with her.

What she didn't know, couldn't have known, was that his thoughts were on her, too.

"_'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome, and I don't feel right when you're gone away..."_ Carth took a jab at singing, because he knew she liked to, and though it was gruff, it didn't sound altogether bad.He felt like she had taken a piece of him with her. Besides his jacket.

And he would have done _anything_ to have her back.

He would still do anything.

He got up wearily, he left his office, his day's work done, only gave little nods to those he passed, the many people working to restore Telos, his homeworld… Why couldn't she have stayed, so they could rebuild together? Why couldn't she have stayed?

"_'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome… And I don't feel right when you're gone away…_" he whispered again, she whispered with him, as he headed absently through the streets of Telos, to the cantina he'd come to know well. He took his seat at the bar, ordered his drink, proceeded to drown his sorrows in it, like he did almost every evening. The Telosian ale had a bitter taste, and it made his tongue hum with the strength of it. He wouldn't have it any other way.

He thought vaguely, as each thought got fuzzier, that he might've gone to get a ring the very next day he'd found her gone. They might have settled on Telos and they could have lived with Dustil and maybe even Mission… But maybe that was just his cowardice, saying "I don't want to do this alone", as after all, Admiral was a pretty big job to shoulder.

"Elizabeth,-" he mumbled into his drink, took another gulp.

"Carth,-" she whispered, far, far away, crying into the only part of him she had left.

"…I miss you…"

He'd denied them so long, but finally, he let the tears come, let them mingle in his drink and he still drank without a care. It all tasted the same without her.

"I _love_ you…"

_You've gone away…_

_You don't feel me here, anymore…_


End file.
